Patent Application
20090132402
The present invention relates generally to operating a market, and particularly to settlement of over-the-counter derivative products traded in a market using a spot rate.
Over-the-counter (OTC) financial derivative products are generally financial instruments or investment vehicles that include custom-tailored, negotiated contracts that are bought, sold, or otherwise exchanged between parties. That is, the OTC financial derivatives are typically not exchange traded. OTC derivatives may include options, forward contracts, foreign exchange (FX) spot and forward contracts, stocks, securities, bonds and any other financial product or investment vehicle that may be traded between parties.
It is desirable for the products to have a payoff that can be easily tracked or monitored using a computer model that may produce a theoretical value for closing and/or settlement purposes. Typically, the settlement or payoff for an OTC derivative may be determined according to conventional International Swap and Derivatives Association (ISDA) rules. The open position on a financial product may be periodically determined prior to expiry through a mark-to-market accounting process where the position is determined according to an agreed upon standard or benchmark. The standard or benchmark may fluctuate or vary with changes in the market. The final payoff may be determined for the derivative product as calculated according to the benchmark at expiration of the product.
The foreign exchange (FX) derivatives, such as options on foreign exchange instruments, may be settled according to an agreed upon benchmark. The benchmark may be a spot benchmark that indicates a spot exchange rate between two currencies for a given moment in time. Current benchmarks used for FX derivative products are determined through a survey of traded price information for spot FX rates that are made available from electronic trading systems. Other benchmark rates, such as the WM/Reuters Spot Rates and the 1 FED FX exchange rate published daily by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, include a buying rate between a variety of currency pairs. The benchmarks do not provide an optimally accurate and reliable benchmark for settling OTC derivatives, such as spot FX products. In addition, the benchmarks and the methods used to determine the benchmarks are not transparent to the public and the price inputs are typically weighted equally. Other currency fixing prices (e.g., The Chicago Mercantile Exchange's (CME) “Currency Fixing Prices”) may be determined through a volume weighted average for future contracts. However, such systems currency fixing prices do not provide a spot FX benchmark rate.
It would be desirable to provide apparatuses, processes and methods for settling OTC derivatives, such as FX derivative products, using synthetic spot benchmark rates.
Aspects of the invention provide a new synthetic spot FX benchmark rate derived from nearby FX futures prices and forward points. The new synthetic spot FX benchmark rate may be used to settle financial derivative products, such as the exercise of an OTC FX option at termination. The benchmark may be determined using a combined process of traded prices with a weighing of the prices by an amount of volume in each associated transaction. A benchmark may be calculated using the volume weighted average price (VWAP) of the FX future for the closing portion of the reporting period. Forward points may be applied to IMM dates to back out a spot FX benchmark rate. That is, volume-weighted FX futures price inputs may be adjusted to spot equivalents by adding or deducting forward points to the delivery dates of the price on the traded futures contracts. The benchmark may be calculated hourly, daily or at any other period. OTC derivatives, such as options, may be settled to the benchmark.
In one example, a computer-assisted method for use with settling an over-the-counter derivative product is disclosed. The method may comprise one or more of the following steps: receiving information about a plurality of completed transactions for an exchange-traded financial derivative; computing a volume-weighted average price based on the information received; applying forward points to the volume weighted average price to determine a spot exchange rate between two currencies; determining a settlement price for the over-the-counter derivative product according to the associated spot exchange rate; and publishing the settlement price. In some examples where the number of completed transactions in a period is less than a predetermined threshold, the volume-weighted average price may be computed using an average of a midpoint of bids and asks of orders for the exchange-traded financial derivative during the periodic interval. In other examples where the number of completed transactions in a period is less than a predetermined threshold, the computed average may be a time-weighted average of bids and asks of orders over a periodic interval for the exchange-traded financial derivative.
Other embodiments are disclosed, and each of the embodiments can be used alone or together in combination. Additional features and advantages of the disclosed embodiments are described in, and will be apparent from, the following Detailed Description and the figures.
Exemplary embodiments of methods, apparatuses, and systems that provide for settling OTC derivatives, such as foreign exchange (FX) derivative products, using synthetic spot benchmark rates are disclosed and discussed below.
An example of an FX derivative product includes an FX futures product. An FX futures product may be considered a transferable futures contract that specifies the price at which a specified currency can be received or delivered at a specified future date. The date on which the currency is received or delivered generally follows the International Monetary Market (IMM) dates. FX future contracts may be used by investors to hedge against foreign exchange risk. The contracts are generally exchanged-traded and delivery or execution of the contract is guaranteed by a central counterparty, such as a clearing house. Traders in an FX Futures contract typically have an open position, or open interest, until the trader exits the position or the delivery date specified by the contract. The value, or profits and losses associated with the open position in the FX futures contracts are generally accounted for through a marked-to-market accounting basis. The trader may exit the position by entering a new FX Future contract with an opposite position to the trader's current position prior to the contract's delivery date. Another example of an FX derivative product is an FX option, which is discussed in additional detail below.
Disclosed are embodiments for settling OTC derivatives using synthetic spot benchmark rates provide for an accurate, reliable and transparent benchmark rate for settling OTC derivative products. Methods for settling FX derivatives using synthetic spot benchmark rates use FX futures trade prices and associated volumes for average price weightings plus vendor or GFX-supplied forward points to derive synthetic spot FX rates at selected times. Alternatively or in addition, when sufficient FX future trade prices and/or volumes are not available, then the midpoints of FX futures bid/ask spreads from an electronic trading platform, such as the CME Group Globex electronic trading platform, may be used. This conversion may provide buyers and sellers of derivative product a reliable benchmark to which an FX derivative product may be settled at expiration.
Referring to the exemplary trading network environment of
The trading network environment shown in
Computer device 114 is shown directly connected to computer system 100. Computer system 100 and computer device 114 may be connected via a T1 line, a common local area network (LAN), wirelessly, or any other mechanism for allowing computer devices to communicate. The user of computer device 114 may transmit/receive the trade or other information to/from computer system 100.
Computer devices 116 and 118 are coupled to a LAN 124. LAN 124 may have one or more of the well-known LAN topologies and may use a variety of different protocols, such as Ethernet. Computers 116 and 118 may communicate with each other and other computers and devices connected to LAN 124. Computers and other devices may be connected to LAN 124 via twisted pair wires, coaxial cable, fiber optics or other media. Alternatively, a wireless personal digital assistant device (PDA) 122 may communicate with LAN 124 or the Internet 126 via radio waves. PDA 122 may also communicate with computer system 100 via a conventional wireless hub 128. As used herein, a PDA includes mobile telephones and other wireless devices that communicate with a network via radio waves.
One or more broker/agent 130 may function as a neutral party to regulate the settlement of over-the-counter financial products between counterparties using a synthetic spot benchmark rate from computer system 100. One skilled in the art will appreciate that numerous additional computers and systems may be coupled to computer system 100. Such computers and systems may include, but are limited to, clearing, regulatory, and/or fee systems.
The operations of computer devices and systems shown in
Of course, numerous additional servers, computers, handheld devices, personal digital assistants, telephones and other devices may also be connected to computer system 100. Moreover, one skilled in the art will appreciate that the topology shown in
Referring to
In the event that less than a predetermined number of trades (e.g., a predetermined threshold of three) during the interval are available (step 204), then bid/ask data may be used to determine the midpoint of the bid/ask spread during a periodic interval (e.g., 30 seconds) in step 208. Samples of the bid/ask may be taken periodically, such as at least once per second, or randomly to compile a set of observed bid/asks during the interval. The VWAP FX futures price may be determined using the average of the midpoints of each observation. In one example, the computation above may be calculated not in real time (i.e., the calculation procedures are a “look back”). In other words, the relevant period of data is first collected and the computations performed after the data for the period has been collected. In another example, the calculation may be a time-weighted average, where regular intervals are defined and the calculated average is the summations of price times the interval divided by the summation of intervals.
In step 210, forward points may be applied for each currency, which are priced to IMM dates to back out spot rates from futures. The forward points are considered as being added to or subtracted from the spot exchange rate to calculate a forward price, adjusted for point size convention. In one example, the forward points may be obtained from a quote vendor, such as Reuters, Bloomberg, CME Group GFX, or others. The forward points may be added or subtracted as appropriate. The resulting value may be used as a spot rate (e.g., CME Spot FX Benchmark Rate).
Once the benchmark rates are determined, OTC products may be settled to the benchmarks in step 212. The benchmark may be published (in step 214) at various periodic intervals, e.g., perhaps hourly. One skilled in the art will appreciate that there are numerous financial products that may be settled based upon the benchmarks. For example, a FX option is yet another example of a financial product (e.g., FX derivative product) that may be settled in accordance with various aspects of the invention. An FX option may be considered a contract that grants the holder of the contract a right to buy or sell currency at a specified exchange rate during or at a specified period of time. Although the holder of the contract has the right to buy or sell, the holder is not obligated to buy or sell. A premium is generally paid in return for the right. FX options are another form of investment vehicle used to hedge against adverse movements in exchange rates. A trader may hedge against foreign currency risk by purchasing an FX option put or call. In an example, a trader may hedge against increases in the exchange rate between the U.S. Dollar and the European Euro (USD/EUR pair) by buying a call option on the USD/EUR exchange. In this manner, the trader may profit from an increase in the exchange rate.
In one example, American-style FX options would expire, and could be exercised against the daily VWAP-determined futures settlement price at options termination (pin risk will also be eliminated by removing contrary instructions to Clearing to prevent automatic exercise of expired in the money options). However, the difference between these daily VWAP-determined FX futures settlement prices and aspects of the invention would include, among other things, the adjustment to transform a “futures price” into a “spot price” for a benchmark rate using forward points. Also, the benchmarks may be calculated and published several times per day, perhaps hourly, at 9:00, 10:00, 11:00 AM, 12:00 noon, 1:00, 2:00, 3:00 PM, etc., whereas, FX settlement prices are done at 2:00 PM only.
The steps, elements and processes discussed herein may be encoded as program logic, computer readable code and/or instructions. These encoded elements, in turn, may be stored or embedded on a computer readable medium such as, for example, a hard disk drive, a solid state drive or other storage medium. The computer readable medium may be in communication with a processor which, in response to an appropriate input or command, may execute the program logic stored on the computer readable medium. The execution of this program logic may result in the execution of the step, elements and processes embodied and discussed herein.
It should be understood that various changes and modifications to the presently preferred embodiments described herein will be apparent to those skilled in the art. Such changes and modifications can be made without departing from the teachings of the present invention and without diminishing its intended advantages. It is therefore intended that such changes and modifications be covered by the appended claims.
